New Haven hip-hop quartet Political Animals plays two area shows this weekend before hitting the festival circ

When hip-hop, reducible (in theory only) to an emcee and DJ, collides with live instruments, the mixture is often combustible, from "Rapper's Delight" and "The Breaks" to most of the Roots' recorded output, or Earl Sweatshirt performing with BadBadNotGood.

Political Animals, a live band/hip-hop hybrid from New Haven, takes its name from Book 1 of Aristotle's "Politics." Rapper Sotorios Fedeli's lyrics — recited over transparent, often minimal grooves laid down by drummer Trent Wright, bassist Jenny Harper and DJ N.E.B., who adds rhythmically charged fills and textures — are often vaguely political; the chorus of "Ultra-Violence," a single from 2014, for example, could be a response to recent displays of violence in the news:

Hook!

Open Eyelids!

Look!

Ultra-Violence!

Monsters from the Sub-Conscious

Outta' control as we spiral

Dead on Arrival

All around the Globe

Going Viral!

"We don't really stress that," Wright said, when I asked about Political Animals' politics. "It's more dealing with everyday issues and not just politics. I mean, there's politics in everything, like you get certain things because of who you know, stuff like that."

Political Animals plays two area shows this week: at New Haven's Pacific Standard Tavern on Friday, June 26, at 9 p.m., with 27 Profits and Wiley Griffen; and at the grand opening of the Eight Sixty Custom Shop, on Park Street in Hartford, on Saturday, June 27, along with Abnormal Area, Joey Batts and Them, the Voyagers, Funk Gero and eight other hip-hop acts. (Music starts at 5 p.m.)

Wilson, Harper and Fideli met in 2009. "I played in a hardcore band," Wright said. "I was doing vocals. And Jenny and Sotorios were in another band, it was kind of like an indie-acoustic hip-hop band kind of thing." Both bands fizzled out, Wright added, "and we all wanted to do a straight-up hip-hop band." They rehearsed and eventually recorded a seven-song EP called "When Animals Attack." "It was just drums and bass, and we knew we needed another sound to like complete it, but we didn't want to add a guitar because every hip-hop band has a guitarist and we didn't want to do that."

The trio met DJ N.E.B. in 2011 at shows and B-Boy events. "He wanted to come and jam with us sometime, and then that's about it," Wright said. "And that's when we really found our real sound."

Since then, Political Animals has recorded only two singles: "Ultra-Violence" and "Man the Mic," from 2013, along with videos for both songs. DJ N.E.B. maintains an independent identity as a performer and recently released two videos on his own, for an instrumental album he's working on. A new Political Animals song and video will be made public in July. Still, focusing on live shows has certainly bolstered Political Animals' fan base; the band recently won the award for Best Hip-Hop at this year's reader-selected Connecticut Music Awards.

Songs come together in various ways. "Sometimes Sotorios will just call me up, like 'Yo, I had this idea,'" Wright said, "and we've just been writing lyrics, and then he'll have this idea for something, or he'll play like an instrumental of something else, and say, 'Yeah, I want maybe a sound of something like this.' But usually it just happens by accident. We'll be practicing songs, and then I'll just go off and start playing something, play something by accident, and then we'll just keep going with it."

The live-band element allows Political Animals to fit on a wide range of bills. "We've played rock shows, hardcore metal shows, everything," Wright said. "Most people think hip-hop is just someone rapping over a beat playing in the background. We're a hip-hop band, but we pull in from all different genres of music, especially because a lot of us want to get onto the festival scene, where there's really not a lot of hip-hop acts. We'll play a lot of funk, and just kind of jam out a lot of stuff, because that's kinda what the festival scenes really want. They want something that people can dance to."

In addition to the weekend shows in Connecticut, Political Animals has upcoming festival gigs in Maine (the Pyroglyphics Festival in Harmony, over July 4th weekend), Ohio (the 2x2 Hip-Hop Festival in Columbus, on July 25) and Massachusetts (Pig Jam 2015 in Ware, on Aug. 6).

Performing live, while no more or less important than recording, Wright said, is how you really connect with an audience and develop a following.

"You can record, but when you see it live, it's a totally different experience," Trent said. "We almost play out just about every weekend."

POLITICAL ANIMALS performs at the Pacific Standard Tavern in New Haven on Friday, June 27, at 9 p.m., with 27 Profits and Wiley Griffen, and on Saturday, June 27, at the Eight Sixty Custom Shop in Hartford; music begins at 5 p.m. Information: pacificstandardtavern.com.